I. Leadership and Success

There is no mystery as to why effective leadership is difficult to mass produce. Given the human-oriented complexity of a school environment, it takes more than standardized methods and practices to lead a school to success. Leaders must rely heavily on their wits and communication skills if they are to announce ambitions goals for student achievement and inspire the deep commitment of staff to realize them. During my years working as an education director for a moderately sized chain of cram schools in Taiwan, I observed numerous times how it is strong leadership and not quality teachers or a rewarding curriculum that brings a school from average to exceptional.

The ability to lead a school to success is a rare and valuable character trait that is uncommon even among public schools, but for institutes dependent on bringing the business to scale, relying on finding such extraordinary individuals for the success of each school would be seriously difficult. To make matters even more challenging, leaders must come with instructional training and to an extent, business management experience so that they can adhere to the organization’s school design and accept responsibility for meeting its academic and financial goals. If schools depend to a large extent on great leadership for success, then what plausible mechanisms are available to increase the supply of these dynamic individuals?

This is the question I attempt to answer by studying the methods of a for-profit education institute in Shanghai China called Shanghai International School (SUIS). Although I have had close contact with SUIS for years by assisting them with some editing work, this is my first time studying their school design and procedures up close.

My aim is to seek ways for SUIS to increase the quantity of quality leadership. This will begin with some context about how leadership affects schooling. With the help of a literature review and a book about running schools as businesses I have broken down what needs to be studied.

- What is the profile of a strong school leader?
- How can such leaders be recruited?
- How can the company cultivate strong leaders after recruitment?

These questions while directed towards SUIS specifically are also answered with all for-profit private education organizations in mind. SUIS will act as a practical and real-world foundation for studying these questions, and my responses will be accompanied by thoughts and ideas derived from the literature.